Amid Affirmative Action Ruling, Some Data on Race and College Enrollment

The Supreme Court’s affirmative-action ruling Tuesday said that states may end racial preferences at public universities. What are the numbers behind race and college enrollment?

Data from the National Center for Education Statistics suggest that there has been a convergence among races going to college in recent years. But though there has been progress in equal representation in college for high-school graduates of different races, affirmative action can only help with one barrier to higher education. The high-school graduation rates for black and Hispanic students remain low and there are growing disparities by income.

College-enrollment rates by race: Among all high-school graduates, about 67% went to either a two- or four-year college, according to the most recent Digest of Educational Statistics prepared by the Education Department. That number is a three-year moving average for 2012 that aims to smooth out annual volatility.

Breaking it down by race, 69% of Hispanic high-school graduates, 67% of white graduates and 62% of black graduates went on to college in 2012. More than 80% of Asian graduates enrolled in a higher-education program.

Race gaps in enrollment: The disparity between the non-Asian races has been narrowing in recent years. The difference between white and black college attendance went from an average of 13 percentage points from 1980-2008 to just just five percentage points from 2009 to 2012. The gap between Hispanics and whites went from 10 points to five percentage points over the same period. In fact, the most recent data show that a greater share of Hispanic graduates went to college in 2012 than whites.

Graduation rates: Despite the convergence in college enrollment in recent years, these data only look at students who have completed high school. And there remains a large racial disparity there. In the 2011-2012 academic year, the averaged freshman graduation rate for whites was 85% and 93% for Asian/Pacific Islander students. But by contrast the graduation rate was 76% for Hispanics and just 68% for black students.

Income gaps in enrollment: The biggest disparities in college enrollment are among varying incomes. More than 80% of high-income graduates go on to college, compared to 66% of middle-income students and just 52% of low-income graduates. All of those shares are higher than the 1980s, but the gaps between them haven’t narrowed much in over 30 years.

In fact, the gap between the highest and lowest income students looks like it’s going the wrong way. In the years between the 2001 and 2008 recession, the gap averaged about 26 percentage points, but from 2009 to 2012, it has averaged 30 percentage points.

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